The Adventure of Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is such a great part of any story, yes even if you are not writing a fantasy story, you still need to construct your world to some degree. One of the greatest adventures in worldbuilding, I think, is realizing that your world is never going to be hyper-realistic no matter how you try and even if you get so close you can almost touch it, some of the artistic elements I have found get lost. I’m drafting two stories at the moment, a fantasy one and a realistic one and in both of them I came to the conclusion both times that realism just wasn’t in the cards. In the thick of coming up with all these elements what is most important can get lost: the story is what matters.

But being the truth is what matters, so I’m going to try to write something that feels realistic. Being realistic and realism are very different things. With realism, there are far too many elements to consider. I like things to be well-rounded and fleshed out, but the truth is that we can’t include everything.

This idea really cemented in me when we discussed this painting in a lecture.

What is going on in this picture? What is the focal point of this piece?

Answering these questions is harder than it should be. Not until someone tells you this is a painting depicting a funeral can you kind of see what’s going on, but barely. The dead guy…